Death of the Reader

In need of a new murder mystery podcast? We were too when we found Caroline Crampton's incredible Shedunnit, a series of essay-like journeys through the mystique and history of the mystery genre. Coincidentally, Caroline's own journey took her to Japan and the Honkaku, or 'traditional' school of murder mystery at the same time we were, and we are super excited to present to you this engaging episo...

We discuss parts 3-7 of The Master Key by Masako Togawa. Our journey hops between the various women living at the K Apartment for Ladies, following the Master Key as it goes from person to person, enabling crimes, justice and chaos. Is someone behind the scenes pulling the strings? The construction date looms as the threat of truth approaches. We're also joined by Rebecca Starford, Publishing Dire...

We discuss parts 1-2 of The Master Key by Masako Togawa. With three potential murders, no detective, no crime scene and seven years of subject matter, the standards of murder mystery are out the window and Herds is completely at sea. A home for single women founded after World War 2 is about to be hauled to a new site to make way for infrastructure decades after its initial opening. All the inhabi...

We discuss Acts 4 to 5 of Soji Shimada's The Tokyo Zodiac Murders. At the end of last arc, Soji Shimada stepped in and warned us that the solution was long-since possible, but there were still two arts to go. Having gone their separate ways to find Azoth, Kiyoshi and Kazumi reunite at Kyoto's Philosopher's Walk to discuss their ideas. A screaming realisation would make it seem Kiyoshi has solved t...

We discuss Acts 2 to 3 of Soji Shimada's The Tokyo Zodiac Murders. After exploring the decades-old case thoroughly, Kiyoshi and Kazumi take a train to Kyoto and try a more boots-on-the-ground approach to solving this famous armchair detective's case. After going their separate ways to cover more ground, Kazumi finds a lead that suggests the late Heikichi Umezawa may be more prompt than he seems. W...

We discuss Act 1 and the Policeman's Confession in Soji Shimada's The Tokyo Zodiac Murders. A series of gruesome murders all but destroys the Umezawa family in 1936, but the alleged culprit died before the crime took place. All that's left is Heikichi Umezawa's bizarre recipe for creating the perfect woman from the pieces of his daughters, and some indiscernible forensic evidence. 43 years in the...

We discuss chapters 14-17 of Inspector Imanishi Investigates by Seicho Matsumoto. With an absurd conclusion to a series of impossible crimes, our struggle between the young and the old leaves a trail of contradictions that seem insurmountable but still manages to satisfy. How did Seicho Matsumoto manage to pull off something this singularly bizarre and compelling, and how has it influenced those w...

We discuss chapters 9-13 of Inspector Imanishi Investigates by Seicho Matsumoto. With the body count mounting, and the killer seemingly responding to Imanishi's movements, the risks are high and to celebrate, we go watch movies. Can Herds transform his ludicrous solution about sci-fi weapons into something that will earn him points, or is our first book of the new year going to end in tears? We're...

Catch our full chat with Dr. L.J.M. Owen about her book The Great Divide and the Terror Australis Readers and Writers Festival. We talk about how the innovative Booklove Tuesdays came to be, how the festival brings literacy to a community in need, and the implications of The Great Divide's grim crimes. We've also got a challenge for you to find the fictional town of Dunton, Tasmania.

We discuss chapters 1-8 of Inspector Imanishi Investigates by Seicho Matsumoto. After a retired policeman is found with his face smashed in between the wheels of a train in the dark of a Tokyo morning, Inspector Imanishi Eitaro is put on the grim case, and finds absolutely nothing. The name of a small town in north-eastern Japan gets them nothing but stories of a weird vagabond and a run-in with s...

Rarely does a murder mystery instill us with a sense of awe quite like The Devotion of Suspect X, which truly deserves its place among the greatest detective stories of all time. Coming in first place for our 2020 recommendations, The Devotion of Suspect X is a peculiar beast that subverts the traditional mystery structure to its core, and uses the character’s own innate understanding of the genre...

Sulari Gentill’s Rowland Sinclair series is one of the strongest franchise detectives of the modern day, for our money. The 1930s playboy son of a wool-shearing fortune has travelled the world and made many enemies in Gentill’s many allegories to the looming return of fascism and authoritarianism to our modern day. Coming in second for Review Season 2020 is the ninth entry in the series, All The T...

Jock Serong’s The Rules of Backyard Cricket was a bit of an unusual inclusion in our roster for 2020, arriving on our radar after Robert Gott described it as one of the greatest crime fiction novels of the past decade. Turns out, we agree! The Rules of Backyard Cricket comes in third on our rankings after tearing our hearts to pieces as much as we tore it to pieces. A story about brothers, cricket...

If you followed the show you’ll know that this was a very contentious book for me this year, but despite the hard time we initially gave Robert Gott for his creative reimagining of an infamous death in his hometown of Maryborough, the chaotic William Power finds himself just shy of a podium finish. Good Murder follows the self-centred William Power as his troupe of actors, the Power Players, arriv...

This Review Season on Death of The Reader has been a nasty one, with stories new and old vying for the top spot, and with two entries Ngaio Marsh is almost cheating, but there's one big difference with this novel. Money in the Morgue was conceived by the late Ngaio Marsh but continued and completed by Stella Duffy, who we had the absolute pleasure of interrogating about the process recently on Dea...

Some entries into the detective fiction genre are so highly regarded, so genre-defining that it would be a crime to even attempt to rank them in any kind of list, lest their impact on our criminal world be diminished even in the slightest. Written by one of the four queens of crime Agatha Christie, Murder on the Orient Express redfined the murder mystery genre on its release in 1934. Set on the cu...

Sat atop the pantheon of Japanese Murder Mystery sits one name. Edogawa Rampo. One of the most acclaimed murder mystery awards in the genre bears his name, both in honour of his contributions as an author, and his role in pioneering the Mystery Writers of Japan, the largest club in Japan’s extremely active community. Rampo is best known as an author for his character Akechi Kogoro, who has gone on...

We’re well into the better half of review season here and you might be saying it’s time for a rest, for a break, but wait, look behind you! There’s a body in the room, where did it come from? There’s blood everywhere, a seemingly innocuous visit to the star actor’s room has made you the number one suspect in a murder case! A Decent Interval, written by long time friend of the show, British author...

Robert Galbraith, as an alias, is said to be an attempt for J.K. Rowling, creator of Harry Potter, to write a series without the same scrutiny she experiences given the high profile her wizarding fantasy novels have afforded her. Her first outing as Galbraith, The Cuckoo’s Calling, comes in at 9th place on our list for 2020.

When you think of murder mystery protagonists, you probably picture history’s greats, like the sharp and observant Sherlock Holmes, or the unrelenting Hercule Poirot, but Naomi Hirahara’s Mas Arai is a special case. This elderly Hiroshima survivor is an unlikely hero, but all the stronger for it, and Sayonara Slam, coming in 10th on our list for 2020, is all the stronger for his quirks.

It’s not often that an adaptation holds up to the standards of the original text, indeed some say it’s impossible. But there are some reinterpretations of events that give that assertion a run for its money. Both Elementary and the Guy Ritchie films are sharing the 11 and 12th positions on our Death of the Reader list for this year. This is not a decision made lightly, and to tell you the truth, m...

The Mystery Writers of Japan has produced some of the finest works in the genre. After Edogawa Rampo pioneered the genre in Japan, and founded this now iconic establishment, the generations of writers since have created some of the most challenging and technically competent stories out there. Seishi Yokomizo was the very first prizewinner for the Mystery Writers of Japan with “The Honjin Murder Ca...

Sherlock in Shanghai novel marked our entry into Eastern Detective Fiction proper and represents a milestone both for ourselves and for the murder mystery scene in China. Xiaoqing wrote this series after years of translating foreign crime fiction stories and his passion for the genre drove him to attempt to localise these stories using his own characters and scenarios, with the Sherlockian Huo San...

Coming in 15th place for our review list, Opening Night at the Vulcan is most renowned among Dame Ngaio Marsh's works for revitalising the theatre scene in New Zealand, and this ultimately leading to Marsh being appointed Dame Commander of the British Empire in 1966. Why has the novel placed so low on our list then? Within, we lower the curtain on the answer to this question.

Oh, BBC Sherlock. Once the standout darling of Sherlock Adaptations, time has not treated you well. Coming in at 16th place is Season 1 of the show. Decades of various Sherlock Holmes adaptations have tried to reinvent Doyle’s wheel in so many ways, and in 2012, Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss managed to coax the BBC into one enormous stab at bringing the famous crime-solving icon into the modern da...